Is Artificial Intelligence Really a Helping Hand for the Healthcare Industry?

In the business world, systems
based on artificial intelligence (AI) are being welcomed with open arms. This
is happening because businesses have understood that a better growth rate can
be achieved by bringing AI into the picture.

Here are some benefits that come from Artificial Intelligence:

Seamless handling of customer interactions.

Personalized shopping experiences.

Smoother data mining.

Zero non-human errors.

Reduction in unnecessary expenses.

However, the question that gets
asked so often is, ‘Should AI be used in the healthcare industry?’, since the
health of patients is at stake. At this juncture, we would like to opine that AI
has emerged as a helping hand for healthcare businesses.

As per reports by Frost & Sullivan, AI will lift the growth rate of the healthcare market up to 40% by 2021. Plus, it will slash treatment costs in half. So, it wouldn’t be wrong to say AI is nothing but a blessing for patients and medical practitioners.

According to an analysis by Accenture, AI-based applications in the healthcare industry will save around $150 billion dollars by 2026. Quite a number, huh?

Let’s learn how
Artificial Intelligence is helping the healthcare industry:

Smart diagnosis

Well, introducing AI in the
medical field can pave the way for higher success and negligible errors, as it
makes the process of diagnosing diseases easier. There was a time when doctors were
dependent on X-rays, CT scanners and MRI machines to find out whether there is
a lump or not in the patient’s body. In addition to this, there was no surety
that using these methods would help to get accurate results.

Since the arrival of AI applications, identifying lumps by using scanning machines is becoming history. Artificial intelligence pre-empts human errors and guarantees highly accurate outputs. If industry reports are anything to go by, AI-based applications can analyze 3D scans 1000 times faster than the technology which was being used a few years ago. In a nutshell, AI promises smart diagnosis.

Apart from this, AI programs also
offer great help during cardiology and radiology processes. By means of AI-based
systems, it would be very easy to identify cancer cells in the initial stages,
which, in turn, leads to better treatment. In similar fashion, AI systems lend
a hand during the treatment of heart-related problems.

Proper management of health records

Managing health records has
always been a challenging task that medical practices are supposed to do with
full responsibility. This is so because if health records don’t get managed in
an appropriate manner, there is a likelihood that patients will face
unnecessary issues. Moreover, negative WOM (word-of-mouth) could also occur,
denting the brand image. This is where AI comes to the rescue as it can easily
manage a pile of records.

Customarily, clinical
documentation consumes a lot of time, which has a negative aftereffect on productivity
levels. But the amalgamation of voice recognition and NLP (natural language
processing) can save a significant amount of time and effort. What’s more,
information retrieval becomes easier, which is a major boon for doctors.

Another benefit of Artificial
Intelligence: doctors don’t have to worry about a drug overdose, wrong
combinations, etc. any longer as AI saves patient information in the cloud
which is known for its ease of accessibility. Besides the storage and retrieval
of information, AI also takes care of routine requests impeccably.

Robot-assisted surgery

The prominence of artificial
intelligence (AI) cannot be overlooked, especially in matters of life and
death. We do have a vivid example to prove this true. Nowadays, AI-assisted robotic surgery
gets performed in established hospitals of the United States, Europe, etc. Owing
to such surgeries, complications get reduced to a large extent during the
operation, which has a positive consequence, improving the odds of
success.

During surgery, robots scrutinize
data from the stored pre-op records to guide the surgeon in an efficient
manner. As a positive outcome of this, the rate of hospital stay dwindled by
21%. This is a win-win factor as it not only secures higher patient
satisfaction but also builds the brand image of the hospital where the surgery
has been performed.

Another impressive fact about
robot-assisted surgery is that it ensures patients don’t have to heal from
large incisions. Owing to the learning capability, AI-based robots use data
from past operations to give better suggestions to doctors/surgeons. Besides
lifting the success rate, this also prevents the case from turning into a
complicated one, which is pleasing from the healthcare business’s point of
view.

As per a recent study, around 379
orthopedic patients said AI-assisted robotic procedures result in five times
lesser complications in comparison to surgeons operating on their own. Seeking
an example of robot-assisted surgery? HeartLander, a mini robot, performs
minimally invasive treatment over the surface of the heart and ensures nothing
goes wrong during the process.

Final thoughts:

As far as the healthcare industry
is concerned, every minute is paramount as it could be the factor that can make
the difference between life and death. Patient safety cannot be compromised at
any cost. That’s why bringing AI-based tools into use is imperative for healthcare
businesses.

By writing this blog, we have discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) acts as a helping hand in the healthcare industry. We hope you have got a better understanding after going through the aforementioned pointers. However, if you feel that some other benefit of AI should have been part of this write-up, please do tell us in the comment section.